This invention relates to an elevator control apparatus which can distinguish between special operation and call registration of an elevator.
An elevator is usually a public means of transport, and anybody can operate it merely by depressing buttons in a hall and a cage. However, it is sometimes desired that only authorized persons be able to go to certain specified floors in a building where there are, for exanple private residences.
To overcome this dilemma, a conventional elevator control apparatus such as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 55-66468, which provides means capable of performing special operations. As shown in FIG. 5, a keyboard K installed in the hall of an elevator Inlcudes a number of key buttons to register hall calls corresponding to destination floors requested by the passengers. Depending on the sequence in which the key buttons are depressed, a hall call corresponding to a specified floor is registered so that cage can be assigned to bring the passenger(s) to the specified floor. For example, when key buttons "1", "8" and "0" in the keyboard K installed in the hall of the main floor are sequentially a hall call corresponding to the fifth floor is registered. When a key button "U" is thereafter depressed, a cage is assigned to bring the passenger(s) straight to the fifth floor.
When a passenger wishes to register a cage call corresponding to a specified floor after getting into the cage, he simply depresses the key buttons on the identical keyboard installed in the predetermined sequence such as "9", "2" and "1" for the fifth floor.
According to this method, only authorized persons who know the depressing sequence of the predetermined key buttons can go to the destination floor. This provides extra security by eliminating unauthorized passengers from accessing certain floors (such as where there are private residence or restricted areas). In this known example, it is noted that the key buttons in the cage may well be used as ordinary destination floor buttons for registering cage calls.
However, the prior art is difficult to practically utilize and has the following disadvantages.
(1) In a case where the ninth floor is an ordinary floor a cage call corresponding to the ninth floor is registered when the key buttons have been depressed in the sequence of "9", "2" and "1" to request special operation to the privately specified floor. In order to avoid this, complicated arrangement must be made to ensure calls for the ordinary ninth floor are registered differently from registering calls for the specified floor having "9" in the sequence.
(2) In a case where an authorized person desires to go to a specified floor and a general (unauthorized) person rides together in the same and where the general person has depressed the key button of an ordinary floor in the course in which the authorized person is depressing the key buttons in the predetermined sequence, the depression of the key buttons in the `predetermined sequence` is not established, and hence, the operation of the cage to the specified floor is not carried through. In this case, the key button depressed by the general person is not validated, either.
That is, when a special operation such as the operation to the specified floor by only the authorized persons is permitted to be done by the use of the ordinary destination buttons, there has been the problem that it is sometimes indistinguishable from the ordinary call registration.